Amedeo puts bounty on free medical textbooks

Open-access medicine promoter Bernd Sebastian Kamps, has launched Amedeo Challenge – a project that offers bounties for authors to write high-quality medical textbooks that will be freely distributed over the internet.

Amedeo has already released free medical textbooks books on HIV and influenza, and now 12,500 euros are being offered for the authors of a book on tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, it seems like only large sponsors are being gathered, but I’ve emailed Kamps to suggest a small donations system for individuals to donate towards a ‘running bounty’ for any book of their choice.

I’d happily donate 50 euros knowing that it would contribute towards the development of a high-quality, open-access psychiatry, neurology or neuropsychology textbook.

If you’d like the opportunity to do something similar, contact the project and suggest the same. It seems like many small donations could create large bounties in a relatively small amount of time.

UPDATE: Good news! I just got the following back from Bernd Sebastian Kamps:

Thank you for your suggestion: Your idea is brilliant (I had never thought of asking for small contributions).

We’ll open the PayPal account next week and by the end of the month, everything should be in place. I’ll keep you informed.

My ideas are rarely described as brilliant (my mum will be proud at least), but more importantly, we’ll post here when the Amedeo Challenge small donations system is in place.